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Americans Looking for Love Are Getting Killed by Gangs in Colombia
Wall Street Journal via MSN ^ | January 19, 2024 | Kejal Vyas

Posted on 01/20/2024 7:14:10 AM PST by DoodleBob

BOGOTÁ, Colombia—Minnesota comedian Tou Ger Xiong had fallen in love with the expat lifestyle in the vibrant Colombian city of Medellín: stock trading by day, fine dining and dance clubs by night.

He was one of a rising number of Americans and foreign nationals who began flocking to the country after the Covid-19 pandemic, some on new digital nomad visas introduced to help spur a growing startup scene.

But hours after prosecutors say he went out on a date on Dec. 10, he was calling family and friends back home to wire him $2,000, telling them he had been kidnapped and held for ransom. The next day, police found Xiong’s lifeless body with multiple stab wounds and bruises after being tossed off a 260-foot cliff along the side of a stream in a lush, wooded area of a city renowned for its eternal spring climate and rolling green hills.

Xiong is one of at least eight Americans who died in Colombia’s second-largest city in November and December amid dozens of cases involving male tourists who were held captive and robbed, often after meeting women on dating apps, Medellín officials said. The deaths, some after the victims were drugged, and a spike in attacks against foreigners led the U.S. Embassy in Colombia to issue an alert this month urging caution for U.S. citizens meeting people through online dating platforms.

In some of the deaths, which the U.S. Embassy deemed suspicious, American men were found dead in their hotel rooms or rented apartments after outings with local women. In other attacks, thugs robbed and killed them on the street while they were on dates…. Others are believed to have died from mixing heavy drinking and the kind of mind-altering drugs gangs slip into drinks to incapacitate a victim before robbery.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: colombia; crime; kidnapping; loneliness; onlinedating
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To: DoodleBob

You get what you ask for. Asking to be drugged & robbed or worse will likely get you just that.


21 posted on 01/20/2024 7:53:14 AM PST by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TThose look good)
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To: EEGator

Bet she wasn’t, Fee Tines A Mady.


22 posted on 01/20/2024 7:53:41 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: citizen

Why would someone spend lots of dough abroad to get robbed and killed when you can simply go to Chicago?


23 posted on 01/20/2024 7:54:56 AM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
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To: DoodleBob

Back when comedy was good.

Maybe I’ll listen to Delirious or Raw for fun later.


24 posted on 01/20/2024 7:55:15 AM PST by EEGator
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To: dfwgator

Certainly not.

I loved when Buckwheat was shot.


25 posted on 01/20/2024 7:58:56 AM PST by EEGator
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To: Mark17

Don’t worry, Columbia’s coming to you, if you’re in the US.


26 posted on 01/20/2024 7:59:26 AM PST by Trailerpark Badass (“There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach,” said one woman)
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To: EEGator

I still laugh as much at Delirious now as I did back then...

“Hey boy, you look mighty cute in them jeans.....”


27 posted on 01/20/2024 7:59:31 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: EEGator

And Texxon was there!


28 posted on 01/20/2024 7:59:50 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

To add insult to injury his date was probably a tranny.


29 posted on 01/20/2024 8:01:24 AM PST by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: Trailerpark Badass

Unfortunately, you are probably right.


30 posted on 01/20/2024 8:03:16 AM PST by Mark17 (Retired USAF air traffic controller. Father of USAF Captain & pilot. Both bitten by the aviation bug)
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To: EEGator

There is a war going on there
I never let that get in the way when young though admittedly

My Colombian time was 80s

Pablo time

I think it’s actually better now

Not for this guy obviously


31 posted on 01/20/2024 8:03:24 AM PST by wardaddy (I have seen true anti semitism is more common in USA than I imagined. A disease in the public mind)
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To: EEGator

Not unless you don’t mind a close Burma shave...


32 posted on 01/20/2024 8:04:16 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: DoodleBob

Freepers are too old to realize how screwed up young American women are now

It’s horrible

I blame guys looking elsewhere at all


33 posted on 01/20/2024 8:04:48 AM PST by wardaddy (I have seen true anti semitism is more common in USA than I imagined. A disease in the public mind)
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To: dfwgator

Ha, Mr. T was great.

An aside-It’s not that I’m getting older, it’s that our society truly sucks now.


34 posted on 01/20/2024 8:07:04 AM PST by EEGator
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To: Gay State Conservative

Yeah, more and more when people give you love advice. It makes you want to ask, “any advice on how to catch bone cancer”?


35 posted on 01/20/2024 8:10:17 AM PST by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI)
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To: EEGator

Lol

This is why I’m on freerepublic


36 posted on 01/20/2024 8:10:26 AM PST by I got the rope
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To: DoodleBob

My (Ill-advised)friend who married a Colombiana remarked that there are basically two types of Colombian women: those with breast implants, and those saving up for breast implants.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that….


37 posted on 01/20/2024 8:10:36 AM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: wardaddy

I hear Pablo’s hippos are running rampant.

I only vacation to Europe or islands where Europeans rule, or still have influence.
I would like to visit Japan though.


38 posted on 01/20/2024 8:11:38 AM PST by EEGator
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To: I got the rope

You need to laugh if we’re heading towards bad times. :)


39 posted on 01/20/2024 8:15:05 AM PST by EEGator
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To: wardaddy

DONT BLAME


40 posted on 01/20/2024 8:15:51 AM PST by wardaddy (I have seen true anti semitism is more common in USA than I imagined. A disease in the public mind)
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